Part 1:

They say killing never gets any easier…

They say that only monsters in the movies, like vampires and werewolves, are the only ones that can kill without remorse, without being disturbed by the killing of another sentient being for their own ends… but as I thought this over some more, I realised that werewolves and vampires and even zombies don't kill people because they're evil, they kill people because they're hungry and to them, we're just food. When I sit down to a hamburger and fries I'm not overcome with remorse for the poor living thing that had to die so I could get my lunch. Once I tried as I ate some meat sticky and juicy with hot cooked body fat of whatever living thing it had come from and was overcome with disgust and queasiness. It reminded me of how we burn bodies of the dead to stop them from reanimating because of T-virus contamination. If we didn't do them to cinders, then they would look the same kind of dripping-with-fat condition about them as a pork chop, which pretty much puts you off pork chops for a while.

You're probably wondering why I'm on this topic. It is because of something I noticed recently about myself while I cut into the dead body of a woman who used to be a tech who worked at Arklay. Apparently, I was not to ask questions on how she had died and were to just remove a few parts from her body that the company needed, and I complied without question. It wasn't until we were about to start, when I noticed she was still breathing and I realised she wasn't dead but heavily sedated. I was worried about this, but the other scientists just started cutting anyway and if it had not been for the great influence William Birkin had on my mind in my life, I don't think I would have cared about her either.

Not long before that, I had been working late doing paper work. My equation just didn't seem to work, you see, and it was driving me nuts. Rabbitson had told me just before he packed up for home that I should just leave it for now and maybe the answer would come to me while I was at home or something, but I just refused to shift from my workspace, unwilling to be defeated by a mere mathematical problem, though I must admit now that maths really isn't my strong point. I'd been there for hours and hours and it was getting really late when I lost my temper with the stubborn piece of paper, venting my anger by throwing a lampshade across the room, plunging the cold metal room into blackness. It was then that I heard footsteps. The lab was supposed to be empty at this time of night and no one stayed late because of the eerie horror movie-like quality to it the laboratories and mansion had so hearing the steps of a tall man striding down the corridor to meet me in the blackness to which my eyes hadn't adjusted… it sent shivers up my spine and I almost fled the room in a nervous panic.

As the door clanked coldly open, however, I was the face of my superior, William Birkin, watching me through the inky shadows. Birkin was a strange man, to say the least, but I've been though his quirky demeanour so many times in my head that you'll forgive me for not repeating it again. Though he was my superior, he wasn't the head Researcher at the Mansion lab I was in (officially that's me but no one feels like it) yet he spent almost all of his time here at Arklay. It felt like he was the boss around here and often took charge.

He stalked over to the desk and my paper in his giant strides and, to my disgust and horror, picked up my pen and solved the equation right there and then! I had to resist all urges screaming out in my body to cry out as loud as I could in frustration, but resisted it until it was only a clenching of my fist until the knuckles turned white. Though I was making an attempt to hide my discontent, Birkin could see it anyway with his creepy superhuman ability to sniff out what a man was thinking from even a glimmer of emotion on his face. My childish frustration made him smile a bit to himself and then he said something that seemed completely off topic at this present situation.

'Do you want to know a secret?'

Well, even before he hinted at what he wanted to show me, I could feel my gut instincts tell me what it was.

Umbrella is the hugely wealthy pharmaceutical company I work for, you see. It makes anything from sophisticated vaccines for hospitals and medical equipment to those boiled sweets that sooth sore throats, but under the surface, these activities fund the research into the development of biological weapons capable of creating the ultimate soldier. So far, Umbrella's idea of the ultimate soldier sleeps in a tank full of chemicals in the Arklay lab with a huge bone claw on its arm. The official word to the workers is that in researching into the diseases, we're finding cures for them, but everyone knows that though the government is being told we are developing them to find a cure, we all know it's really to research into more destructive bio weapons.

Oswald Spencer is the boss of Umbrella you see and it's no secret that more than a few of the higher-ups in the food chain think he's losing his sense after all these years. Birkin once told me that developing bio weapons is actually causing Spencer to lose money, and his associate Albert Wesker, who is far more in touch with the business side of what we're doing at Arklay, can't work out why he'd want to waste time making these things with no profit to himself. Wesker always was out of touch with the emotional side of life… and me and William both knew without even voicing our opinions to one another that Spencer was interested in the same thing we were; knowledge. He didn't care for money; he cared for the power and enlightenment these bio weapons would bring.

That's where we loop back to what I said a moment ago about what William had to show me. Umbrella, at direct order from Spencer himself, had hired the top specialist on the theory of wormholes and interdimensional travel so that he could be funded to construct 'a machine'. We're not supposed to know anything about it, it being even more top secret than our T-virus experiments and whatnot but there's always going to be one or two people who can't keep their mouths shut working on any big project… Anyway, we'd heard that Spencer had ordered the development for device that could slice through the very fabric of time and space and create a gateway to other worlds. It all sounded very science-fictiony but he was convinced there was no reason why it couldn't work without the right kind of money behind it.

What Birkin took to show me was that very device itself, practically days from completion.

You may have thought it was very unprofessional of him to go around divulging secrets to every other researcher who couldn't figure out his maths homework but the truth is that Birkin is one of the most capable scientists I've ever met. Birkin and I have a very strange relationship going on… Fathoming what must be going through that mind of his constantly fascinates me… I am completely unable to even work out an inch of the human side of him, so much so that I have started to think that Birkin lacks any humanity whatsoever. On his part, he too finds me strange compared with the common man. Birkin isn't the only one who's noticed how I go about deciphering the workings of the minds of everyone who enters my life meticulously, developing a set of rules for handling them so that none of their actions are totally unpredictable. Birkin however, followed rules different to humans. Every human being follows a same basic way of thought, except for Birkin. It's hard to describe off the top of my head like this, but it's sort of like trying to work out long multiplication using simple multiplication rules: no matter how you do it or how many times, your equation just wont work. The best way to handle Birkin is to keep out of his way, then you don't run the risk of being surprised by him, yet no matter how many times I try to expect the unexpected, Birkin always invokes the strongest emotions within me.

As I beheld the giant device in its dormant state, I felt a mixture of emotions explode within my stomach: Joy, fear, admirations and dread… Something about the way its' steel form stood proudly over everything in the wide open but cluttered room told me that it would bring great wonder and great trouble right to our doorstep. It looked pretty similar to our G-virus Vaccine synthesis machine; made up of a giant console and platform on which stood humongous rings of metal rimmed with strange scientific buttons and gages. The V.A.M system had been lying in its side, this device stood up straight almost like a trophy. The multiple rings that made up its frame were all at different positions at the moment, but one could tell that once activated, the rings would align themselves (much like a gyroscope) to make a perfect, giant ring which no doubt served as the portal.

'How long has this been in here?' I dared to ask Williams lightly smiling face.

'Not as long as you might think.' He replied simply, and that was all the words exchanged between us as we beheld the impossible machine. After he closed and locked the door behind us as we left, he told me something that filled me with an instant panic; that when it was operational and the company was sure that travel through the machine was safe, I would be part of the team that would go though its window into the new world. At seeing my alarm, Birkin tried to reassure me that the exploring scientists would not be alone, that we would have more soldiers behind us that we could count on, but now that I think about it, if the company thinks we really need that many, then it must be very dangerous…

So that's the situation, good listeners. Umbrella wants us to go into another world to discover its scientific secrets and I'm on call to be one of the first to go there. For the next week I was terrified that that phone call could come at any moment and I would be told 'Doctor John Howe, you are required as a part of our mission at laboratory insert name of laboratory here. Oh yes and there's a huge chance you might die on alien soil but lets not worry about that now, eh?' Even if I do survive, I'm not partial to having my atoms transported to some far off place but now, I pray for it.

I pray for it because I'm stuck shopping with two young women (friends of my girlfriend) who have gone into stereotype 'buy everything thats cute' mode, bored out of my mind, my feet killing me, my back killing me, and myself being in a generally miserable state. I tried to sneak off without them knowing twice but they found me after two minuets every time.

Now I have nothing against shopping. Going down town without buying anything is like going to an opera while being as deaf as a post; there's no point in it, but theses women have been to six separate shoe shop and bought twice as many pairs of shoes while the ones they're wearing quite clearly are not the ones I saw them wearing less than two days ago. Any they're not cheap, either. And I'm paying. Who the hell needs that many shoes? There are people in this country that cant even afford to wear shoes and they have more now than I'll own in a lifetime! I'm not the sexist type, but a group of supposedly intelligent women clinging to stereotypically idiocy such as this can cause a man like me to wonder if women like those two realise how stupid they look. In this modern age, it seems that to be treated equally, you have to act equally; it's the nature of acceptance, at least amongst the frigid humans of today. I suppose there are always going to be people who hate you for being different, even if it is diversion that causes evolution, and without evolution, we'd all be simple slime in ponds. Maybe that's what they want humans to become once again…

My eyes widened and my heart skipped a beat when I felt my mobile vibrate in my pocket. Even before answering I knew what it would be.

The bulky steel chamber hummed just as much from the whirling and occasional hissing sounds of working machinery as from the chattering of the scientists that occupied the vast chambers itself. It was a strange mixture of sounds that filled one with a kind of anticipation for what we were all gathered here to witness, despite that we all held the knowledge of it already within our racing minds: Umbrella had prepared us as much as it could for the impending events right down to the very noises we would here; they didn't want anything to take their employees by surprise and ultimately leave them vulnerable, even in something as petty as witnessing this.

Though I certainly go through a lot of internal dialogue, I wasn't much of a talker. I watched wordlessly with my arms folded across my chest as the great rings of the dimension device began their unnatural rotations, warming up the machine for its imminent use. Immediately as they all noticed it, group by group, the rate of discussion sped up to a roaring cheer. I shook my head with a heartfelt sigh; why was this such a big deal to them? Why did they have to be so noisy about something they had been briefed about in every possible detail? It just didn't make any sense to me… -

- From the corner of my eye, I caught the gaze of a familiar face and involuntarily winced at the excited recognition in the youthful eyes of my colleague Bill Rabbitson. It knew it was wrong to feel exasperated at the sight of what was possibly my best friend racing to meet up with me, but it happened anyway. At least I'm a lot better at hiding my emotions now than I was when I first came to Arklay.

Rabbitson hadn't changed at all since the very first time we met. He only went through a brief period of shyness before opening the floodgates of emotion. He was bizarrely mentally removed from what was happening in the laboratories of the Arklay Mansion in that he was almost too happy and bouncy about his work than was considered psychologically healthy. However, you can learn a lot from a man when he's drunk… Though I myself remain uncomfortably silent to all my friends while intoxicated, Rabbitson has quite often become manically depressed, bouncing off the walls with happiness before slumping right down into the pit of despair moments later. Such behaviour tells me that maybe all his happiness and light moods are just a shell he encases himself in to stop his work from driving him crazy…

You're probably wondering why some of the messed up stuff I do for a living at Arklay doesn't drive me crazy because I'm pretty much wondering that myself too. Some people have told me that I'm simply just stronger in dealing with it that other people and some have gone so far as to say that I'm already crazy beyond the insanity of my work… What's crazy and what's not start to become very jumbled if you remain too submerged in the odd for as long as I.

My life, believe it or not, wasn't very screwy when I worked at a Chicago branch for Umbrella. The bio weapons experiments Umbrella was conducting were only a little (and when I say little, I really mean BIG but no one was really willing to admit they knew anything) rumour whizzing around the laboratories there. We were told our research was being used to make vaccines and medicines for hospitals and the occasional man-made pathogen for further medical research. It wasn't until I started asking questions about our work that I realised something else was going on here. Every line of enquiry I took on the results of our work, every path I followed to the products of my pathogen research would end in a brick wall and never the answers I craved for. It was then that I met Albert Wesker for the first time. I'll never forget just how much the man scared the hell out of me with his Gestapo act, making out like if I didn't desist, I may not live much longer. He never said it to me directly of course, but the blank, heartless expression stinging my usually unwavering spirit, (at least in those days) those shades covering his eyes giving me a feel as if the man didn't have a soul, like he was a machine… I didn't feel much like arguing with the man then…

Now, I'd speak to Wesker fairly often. He was assistant and colleague to a certain crazy scientist (Birkin, for the less perceptive of you) in my life and interaction with him was inevitable. He still seems as robotic now as he did back then.

"So John"- Rabbitson said quickly, breaking me from my reminiscing with the past. "You getting all excited about visiting another world?" He smiled playfully, rubbing his hands together and cocking his head good-naturedly to the side with a questioning smile. He was always too energetic in most of the things he did.

"…If the machine does work," I replied with my arms folded and a half smile upon my lips, my relaxed manner paralleling Rabbitson exasperating nature. "and somehow we're able to visit another dimension or world or something… There's no guarantee that there will be any form of life on any of them. We could be searching all our lives and come up with nothing."

"Yeah-but on the flip side, what if we DO find another dimension and we're able to communicate? What if the Universe is full of intelligent life? Come-on-Surely the possibility is enough to excite you?"

I shook my head. "Apparently it isn't…" I responded, serving to dampen Bill Rabbitsons' spirits only briefly before he burst back into life again.

"Hey I know! We could ask Birkin!"

I twitched.

"…..Why?" I asked, feeling dread build inside of me. If ever I would have any dealings with Birkin, the man treated me in a way through which I would feel like a small child listening to the words of some great master again. I honestly couldn't tell you if he intended for me to feel that way around him… Maybe he considered his relationship with me some kind of game to amuse himself with…

To help you get more of an insight to the more playful side of the personality of the man, telling you of his behaviour when drunk would tell you his moods when his guard is down. I've only ever seen Birkin get drunk once, but he caused a lot of trouble when he did, like a naughty child upon discovering something of power and importance: Talking them out of it was like trying to negotiate a bus from teetering off an edge of a cliff. This element of him was always there; it had just become greatly amplified by alcohols sedating effects on the brain. What he actually did on that night was climb dangerously to the very rooftop of the mansion building (which involved climbing out of a second floor window, scampering up vines and trellising onto a chimney stack and finally, the rickety old roof itself). When there, he proceeded to fire canisters of teargas from a grenade launcher onto anyone he saw skittering around in the courtyard, of which he had a wide precedence over at his vantage point. I think I was one of them… I was so off-my-head drunk that I had no idea what was happening to me! I really needed to pee and there was only one toilet in the Mansion. I didn't trust myself to hold it in for long enough to search for it so I ran off to the Guardhouse where I knew the toilets were at least one per room. My dorm wasn't in there but one of the guys had to let me use theirs! Suddenly, something heavy thumped against my back followed by huge plumes of white noxious gasses covered all my senses with a vicious veil of malice. All I could remember after that was the horrid stinging of my eyes as I raced to the Guardhouse and maniacal laughter coming from somewhere beyond my field of vision. Birkin took a sadistic kind of pleasure in making things hurt, though he did have some boundaries. Where those boundaries were though, I still haven't really discovered. His morals was just as mysterious to me as his intellect.

"What do you mean 'why ask Birkin?'?" Rabbitson chuckled. "We all know he's been clued in since day one with this!"

I raised my eyebrows. "I didn't!"

"Didn't he tell you?"

"No!" Yelled John angrily. "God – why does he never, EVER tell me these things?"

Rabbitson shook his head. "From what I figure about Birkin, he does it just 'cus he knows it pisses you off."

He was right; everyone knew it. Since day one Birkin had been going out of his way to intimidate me in insignificant instances such as this, but as anyone subjected to emotional torture of any kind will know, little annoyances quickly build up into something quite crushing. He enjoyed toying with my mind because to a man like him, it was just so easy. Judging emotional reactions in other people comes naturally to normal folk, but without giving it serious thought, I can't follow the minds of men instinctually. He often uses that to his advantage…..

When the portal opened, the procedure to be followed somewhat reminded me of space exploration and the examination of other worlds. Now that I say the words out in my mind, what we were planning to do was no different from what NASA would do; send a probe to a planet, in their case, Mars or something, get some dirt samples, test the air quality and head for home and it would only take ten years. Hmph…. Our portal allowed us to examine a world quite possibly outside the known universe in less than a few hours. Problem was for me that if the planet had conditions that could support life, guess who'd be tossed in for further experiments? Us. I think I've told you all that before but I still can't get over how much it sucks.

The gyrating rings of the machine reached their optimum speed and the countdown commenced. At its conclusion, the portal would open and the first probes would be sent through. What struck me as odd was that we hadn't been told how they picked the location to open the portal at. It didn't make any sense; so far the big bosses of Umbrella were trying to convince us they'd picked a location at random but only a child would believe such a shoddy notion. Something was being held back – I had no clue as to what – but for example, maybe they'd found something here on Earth that pointed to this location, or something along those lines….. It was the only explanation I could devise as to why they'd put all their eggs in one basket like this.

The rapidly rotating rings abruptly snapped into place with an angry metal shriek, forming a complete circle and bolts of electricity shot across the inside of the ring in a star shape. Moments later the electricity exploded into a portal, almost liquid like, of a strange and unknown form of energy. Much to my surprise, the cavernous room filled to the brim with scientists and Umbrella soldiers alike was utterly silent, a contrast to the over boisterous mood they all bore literally minuets ago. I can only guess they were stunned by what they were seeing, though it still left me confused. They'd been told so many times what to expect and yet they still found themselves speechless, beholding the rippling glory of the perpendicular pool.

"Send in the probe!" Someone called out, breaking the stunned silence, and two men dressed in lab coats (researchers from another lab) lifted a reasonably hefty machine - that looked to me like one of those newfangled, space-aged vacuum cleaners - up to the pedestal in front of the portal. It pottered along the short ramp clumsily, the mechanical tendril that held its camera shaking around as it ran over every lump and bump on the seemingly smooth slope before disappearing into the strange dimensional fluid. Someone switched on the camera via remote and on the large plasma screen TV high on the wall to the top left of the still open portal. The image flicked up instantaneously. If it weren't for the still open portal, the transmission signals for the TV image being sent by the probe would quite possibly take billions upon billions of years to reach Earth, assuming they were being sent from someplace in this reality at all, but the portal acted as a quick route between the two worlds so the picture appeared as they were being filmed with no time delay. The picture was still bad however. God dammit – did they go so overboard with the budget that they could only afford a cheap web cam for the probe? It was still travelling through the portal, so all that was showing up was static –

-Then a picture slid downwards through the static onto the TV and a poor quality, low definition image appeared. I snorted in dissatisfaction as how poor the picture was but my displeasure died quickly when I noticed something. The image on the large screen was not of a desolate alien landscape but of the interior of a strange room decorated with bizarre runes and clearly intelligently created architecture….. I couldn't really compare it with an architectural design here on Earth, but it all seemed strangely gothic in one way... modern in its preciseness. Maybe it was the runes or the dark and melancholic, shadowy colours, but although it was very dark and depressing, it was hauntingly beautiful.

The probe pottered onwards at a gradual, lumpy pace and each heavy bounce caused the screen to significantly glitch. I had only just noticed there was no sound. It seemed like such a waste of an observational opportunity, to me. –

- The probe had stopped moving for some reason and as the vacuum cleaner-like contraption struggled to move forward on wheels that were treading the same old black marbled floor, a figure came into sight. The breath was caught in the back of the throat in every researcher beholding the fuzzy picture as a shape clothed in armour half appeared on the screen……. But there was something strange with the image……. What we all were viewing wasn't so much of a body clothed in armour….. but just armour, floating unaided where the limbs of a body should have been. I shook my head in disbelieve but full well knowing inside me that what I was seeing was not an error in transmition or just a trick of the light. This man – or whatever it was – had no body.

"How is that possible?" Asked Rabbitson still next to me, the serious tone in his voice sounding almost alien, coming from the usually cheery guy. At least he too was accepting what he was seeing, unlike some of the men around me. The picture even changed colour for a moment as one of the other researchers messed with the controls of the screen, believing there was something wrong with the set rather than the lower half of a man we were seeing.

"It's…..not." I replied bluntly. There was no real scientific explanation for this, not a rational one at least. But I think if I hear another person explain the supernatural away as swamp gas or magnetic force or electrical phenomena, then – I swear – I will cave their head in with a chair. We're scientist for gods sake; our duty is to dispel ignorance, but assuming there's a scientific explanation for everything – even when we're beholding something as extremely odd as floating armour man over there – is ignorance itself.

"What are we going to do?" Said Rabbitson shakily. He was going through that portal along with me and the other teams when the probe was done and enchanted suits of armour didn't have a peace loving track record in fairytale stories. Our first major fear was to die from gravitational force or atmospheric pressure or even poisonous gasses in the air, but not being chopped to ribbons by the medieval periods answer to 'The Terminator'. –

- The walking armours upper torso (which was just beyond camera view) jerked suddenly and the image was lost, replaced with static. My fears had been confirmed; the walking armour destroyed our probe and probably wouldn't like human trespassers on his property and we didn't have a negotiator – didn't think we needed one – so what would happen next?

"Send in 'Team A'." Called out an authoritive voice from the main control desk. A roar of discontent rose from the crowd. Amidst the uproar could be heard random complaints that made every bit of sense to me:

"Is this sick a joke?"

"The first minuet and the probe was completely totalled! You don't need to be psychic to know that's an omen!"

"The probe wasn't there long enough to make any tests! What if the pressure is incredible or the air is toxic?"

"Now, now." Called out one of the men at the control station, indistinguishable from his co-workers because of all their matching black leathers and shades. At his mouth was a headset that amplified his voice to all the men. "If that guy was there then that means there are conditions for supporting life, and if it can support life then it can support us."

"That sounds like a bit of a shoddy plan!" Cried someone from the crowd.

"No it isn't." Replied the speaker, massaging his temples agitatedly. "Look – Absolutely all life requires the same kind of things to function, you know, water, oxygen. Be it in the Sahara Desert or the Antarctic, an ant or a human being, all life need the same basic materials to stay alive, so if life exists on another planet, then it's because they thrive on the same kinds of stuff as us and –why-am-I-explaining-this-to-you-all-anyway? You're the scientists! You should know these things!"

I shook my head. "It still seems like a bit of a risk to me….." I said to myself. –

-"You with the blonde hair and blue eyes; think with your head, not with your mouth." Cried out the speaker, overhearing my comment.

"You could at least call me by name!"

There were two Teams; Team A and Team B. Team A had all the best people in - which is why I was enlisted to it - and was the first wave, as the name would suggest. Team B existed just in-case 'unforeseen events transpired' which meant if we were all wiped out and killed, they took over.

Team A - as I said before – had all the best people in it, meaning Birkin would be there, and so his 'sort of' friend Albert Wesker probably would be too. No one I knew was really one hundred percent sure what Wesker was to Umbrella. At one time, he was a scientist here, but now he dressed and acted as if he was more of a military type than anything else. He was very 'in control' of a situation, no matter how hectic things got so he would have been an obvious choice for the mission; someone to keep it all together when the scientist types couldn't handle it.

Come to think of it, Rabbitson (or Bunny, as I've come to know him as) was coming along with Team A, wasn't he? Huh…. He often comes across as a bit of a ditz but he could be an incredible scientist when he put his mind to it. In a way I suppose it's good to see the guys at the top put him in Team A because it meant they recognise his talent despite his attitude which more often than not leaves a lot of regular people believing him to be an idiot. I suppose it gave him an edge in a situation: Bunny could be very manipulative and devious in a situation without you even becoming aware of it. I can't think of an actual case where he has done this off the top of my head like this, but Bunny….. well….. He'll hold back information using his seemingly clueless persona and use it to bail his ass out of trouble….. No, on second thought, Rabbitson wasn't they type to screw over his friends in a time of need, no matter how anxious and twitchy he appears in a dangerous and demanding situation. I suppose that's why the nickname 'bunny' suits him best; he's like a small, frightened, trapped animal when under pressure. He pretends not to know things, but for positive reasons, maybe because he's afraid of how we'd treat him if we found out what was going on in his head…..

There was an understandable air of discontent in the room as the men uniformed entirely in black at the control desk potentially sealed the fate of the entire 'Team A' which made up about two thirds of the scientists in the chamber and about four teams of Umbrella's finest soldiers, which where men dressed entirely in black body armour and gas masks. Those gas masked even had black filters on the eye sockets so one beholding them couldn't see their faces. What you could see, however, what their eyes, but the coloured plastic tainted their pupils, making them appear blood red. There were some rumours going around the labs that some of those men under the masks weren't entirely men, but modified slightly by some of Umbrellas bio weapon forming drugs. True, I've seen one of those soldiers survive situations that I'd never believed a man could walk away from, but I doubt a bio weapon as sophisticated as a sentient human being exists within Umbrella. That's the problem with out results: Best thing I've seen was the 'Tyrant-002' which was a giant, mindless killing machine twice the size and build of a grown man, and far stronger still. It was also our most intelligent specimen, but it was still little more than an animal. Sometimes it could surprise you with its seemingly intelligent behaviour, like pausing in recognition before running into an obvious trap, then walking around the trap to its prey, but the researchers that worked on it originally were said to be a regimented bunch, and their creation was put together as if it were a well planned and constructed machine and so it rarely fell short of or surpassed expectations.

On that note, what the people at the top were hoping to obtain from this mission – I guess – was some new bio-organic material, like a virus or some bacteria that could never have developed naturally on Earth. From there they hoped to create a new monster-making virus with some new and original parameters, seeing as every virus we had was either descended from or based on Ebola in some way…. They hoped to get hold of something that could never have even graced the minds of men in this world, and from the looks of our floating-armour friend, it seems they won't be too disappointed. To think we could find a way to imitate that; turning an inorganic object such as a suit of armour into something that emulates the processes of life so amazingly….. I felt tingles turn my stomach queasy just thinking about it.

"Well don't just stand their moaning." Called out one of the black clad men at the control desk. "Someone has to be the first to pass through the threshold."

And become the first target for the walking armour? Not likely. I don't think there was a man in this room who'd be dumb enough to-

-"Then I'll go first."

A voice directly behind me that I knew only too well. Rabbitson span around to face the man, shock and surprise fighting with amusement across his jolly features, but I – as I usually did – froze with a feeling of dread filling me, causing me to involuntarily close my eyes in a wince recoiling from an emotional scalding.

It was William Birkin, and somehow - at some point - he had snuck up behind me, watching me and scrutinising my reactions at close proximity, invading my personal space without me even becoming aware of it. William Birkin possessed such an awe inspiring, authoritative prescience in every room he entered, yet seemingly when he wanted to, he could easily suppress that same magnificent aura enabling him to slink about in our midst, undetected by his peers. It was an impressive, albeit irritating power.

"And I'm sure John Howe would follow."

I grew irritated by his possibly unintentionally bullying, presumptuous nature and span around to meet his mildly smiling, ashen mug with deep, cold icy blue eyes.

"I don't think so!" I protested. "I plan on living past today!"

William smirked.

"Don't be such a wimp, Doctor Howe." He pushed gently past me, heading off in the direction of the portal. I stood dumbstruck for a few moments…. I couldn't believe the man had called me a wimp! It was childish of him, so childish that it took me utterly off guard and left me struggling to find the words to express my annoyance. Eventually, I fell upon them.

"Bastard!" And shoving Rabbitson out of the way before he could come up with words of condolence, I followed Birkin off to the portal without even realising what I was getting myself into. At the time, I was filled with irritated anguish that the man could just make a blatant and foolhardy stab at me and then walk off as if the discussion was closed and he had beaten me, when it was quite far from it. I wanted to settle the argument, make him confess that what he had said was immature, but Birkin had very cleverly set off a chain reaction that would finally result in 'Team A' plucking up the courage to step into the unknown. Birkin had pissed me off enough to get me following him in a cross mood, Rabbitson following me in a weak yet friendly attempt to cool me down, and everyone else, seeing three men rushing to face the portal, feeling that perhaps the idea wasn't so suicidal if the three they were following with their eyes across the room, could risk it. I don't think I grasped what I was doing until Birkin disappeared into the erect shimmering pool and all that was left before me was the gateway to the unknown.

"Shit!"

"What's the matter – lost your nerve?" Quipped Rabbitson, who'd been bringing up the rear and peaked over my shoulder at the abrupt transformation in my emotions. "Birkin knows he's like dangling the carrot to you and you just followed the bait right up to the portal. Now all you have to do is take that final step."

"And you'll be there for me I guess?" I sighed sarcastically.

"You know I'll push you if you don't!" He chuckled, slapping his hands down firmly on both of my lab coat clad shoulders. "And besides, are you really willing to just leave Birkin in that world all alone? He trusts in you, John."

"All right, All right, I'll go already. Cut out the emotional blackmail." Surprisingly, I didn't think Birkin would be in much danger over there…. He was even crazier than I am (or should I say eccentric, as the old saying says, only poor men are insane, powerful men are eccentric) and would undoubtedly have planned for a situation like this. He'd be okay. He'd be fine……… right?

Shit. I can't really go back now can I? Not with Rabbitson behind me, pressing his damn body up against me like a small dog trying to hump my leg. Or in this case my entire back. He's too physical, far too physical for my comfort, pressing his hot body against me, warming the cold clammy skin of my face with his hot breath, brushing against my cheek from his position, warm against my back, breathing, his heart beat filling my ears….. or is that my heartbeat drowning out all sounds of importance. And then there's everyone else with their eyes pointing, spearing, digging into the back of my head and making my face turn red hot. Course it could have been Rabbitson with his damn closeness! I swear to god-if he gets a boner, then I'll-

-Rabbitson shoved me. -

If the sensation could be described in mere mortal words – and you know I'll try – for a time, it was as if I really was plunging into a vertical pool of water, my face bombarded with a dense substance filling my nostrils, slick to the touch much like water, yet dry and warm, like one would envision liquid oxygen to be like in consistency. It bubbled over my flesh wildly, and for a time, I dared not to open my eyes until I felt the rush of extreme speed pull back on my body, both inside and out. What I saw when I flicked them open was a tunnel, semi-translucent and hazy, as if made from sparse, sparkling cerulean clouds that allowed for viewing into the galaxies beyond, racing past faster than scientifically possible, without liquidating my body, of course. So many beautiful galaxies flying past me, each every imaginable hue of every colour of the rainbow, glittering magnificently, but their beauty only to be savour for but an instant before they dashed beyond me and out of all possible sensation. But why? Why was I dashing past them in this ethereal tunnel? It made no sense…. Was I rushing past them, because they were all empty and utterly devoid of life? So many billions of beautiful Galaxies of all shapes and sizes…. Was I leaving our Universe altogether? To think that everything for countless billions of light-years was nothing but emptiness, not a single mind chattering to itself in the whole Universe as we know it, but for ourselves….. But at least I could take some comfort in the fact that finally we had found someone out there, even if there were innumerable light-years between us.

And all too soon it was over and I was being thrown from the eerier warmth of the passageway onto the harsh black marble floors of the chamber I'd viewed from the labs. My head clunked against the steely marble as I struck and for the first six seconds of my arrival, the pain was all I could think about and all I could sense.

"And what of this one?" Demanded a rough and rasping voice somewhere a short distance in front of me, his tone that of restless annoyance.

"That's just my associate Doctor John Howe." Said the familiar voice of Birkin in reply to the man. I was still rubbing my head with my fingers brushing roughly through my pure blonde hair. I think I stunned myself somewhat, as it took me a further ten seconds to collect my thoughts before I even considered getting back on my feet.

"And you call yourselves men of science?" Continued the husky and demanding voice of the stranger.

"Don't you have scientists in this world?" Birkin innocently asked.

"We do, but now we have more important things to worry about than books and potions, child." He hissed spitefully, apparently taking offence by what William had said, despite it being perfectly clear in his voice that he had tried his hardest to sound as far from patronising as he could muster, which was an achievement for Birkin.

I became aware that the portal open was still open behind me in a levitating, shimmering ball and just at the moment I became aware of this, Rabbitson join us, landing his slight, yet surprisingly heavy frame right on top of me. The air was forced from my lungs and all I could manage in protest was a painful wheeze. Fortunately for Bunny, I was still pretty dazed from pounding my head down on the marble floor so I was too stunned to scream obscenities at him.

"How many more of you are there?" Barked the rough voiced man.

"I'm sorry but there's a whole team of scientist possibly on their way now…" Birkin replied apologetically. "And that's without the security."

"How dare you drag your putrid people into our world without our permossion!"

"We apologise, but if you consider it in this way: The quicker you help us the sooner we'll be out of your metaphorical hair."

Metaphorical? I looked up and found my eyes almost popping from their sockets. It was the walking armour. Birkin was talking to the walking armour.

"Are you trying to threaten me?" He hissed, the pike or Halberd - or whatever the proper name for the spear like weapon he was wielding was – span at the end of its floating arm section like a propeller blade as the floating suit of amour began to lose his patience with Birkin, who was trying his best to cool it off. I frowned in confusion. He didn't seem the least bit intimidated by the drifting armour towering over the scientist, who wasn't a petit man himself.

"Of course I'm not, sir." I think that was the first time I've Birkin address anyone as his superior. "I am but a humble scientist, who"-

-"How dare you patronise me!"

At that point, Rabbitson suddenly became aware of the situation, but not sufficiently to keep his mouth shut.

"Holy shit! That guy's got no body!" Precisely the thing you'd expect a floating armour monster to be sensitive about. I inwardly winced, but I was more concerned that he was sitting on my back still and if the walking armour took to violence, I might get hit in the crossfire.

"You are wrong, little man." He hissed like a snake, his helmet turning to face Rabbitson, who was beginning to embrace his nickname of Bunny, shrinking down under his non-existent stare and making himself seeming even smaller than he was now. "I have a body yet it is not here at present, but festering on a stool back in my bastion." He was being unnecessarily blunt…. "It was a curse bestowed upon me by no fault of my own…"-

-"Come now Malek." The voice of an elderly gentleman rang out from the direction of two large, intricately carven wooden doors and at once the walking armour he had called Malek shrivelled at his words, transforming a proud man with his chest stuck out into a scaled child. "We all know very well that it was entirely your own fault, my boy…" The man was indeed elderly, wearing a strange, greyish green, hooded cloche the hem lined with a fabric golden in colour. The clothing beneath it was purple in shade, and in his left hand was a staff with the wooden effigy of a snake carved around it. At the top of the cane rested a striking pearl-like object – as it was too big, far too big, to be a real pearl – which changed from hues of a light purple to a beautiful navy blue. The old mans eyes were partially cataract, but he seemed to be seeing things perfectly well in spite of this, and upon his forehead was an insignia…. A looping figure of eight. I recognised it as a 'mobius', a loop of infinity with no beginning or end. Now that I thought about it, the snake be bore on his staff held a certain time based significance. The emblem of a snake eating its own tale held the same symbolism as the 'mobius'.

As the old man entered the room, he was accompanied by another man. This bearded man worse seemingly layers of red fabrics and capes, and his pupils were invisible, covered in a pure, snowy-white film. Across his chest, coming out from beneath his spiked shoulder pads, were strange barbs hugging his chest, much resembling rib-like structures… Both men appeared exceptionally prestigious, which is why Birkin completely ignored the floating armour Malek and addressed them instead.

"May I ask who are you?"

"My boy, I believe by all rights, I should be asking you that question."

"My name is Doctor William Birkin. I'm 'Team A' leader and these two clowns are Doctor John Howe and Doctor Bill Rabbitson."

-"Hey- I object to that!" I protested whist throwing Rabbitson from my back and climbing to my feet, dusting the think layer of dust from my genes. The two men and the armour weren't paying much attention to us now that they had been told Birkin was the team leader.

"And what business have you in our fair land, Doctor?" Asked the mobius man in a fairly innocent tone.

"We're looking….." Birkin paused for a moment, thinking twice about telling these strangers their orders, but finally fell on the decision that they needed inside help and these two men – with all their prominent countenance – looked as if they were the best men to befriend. "We're looking for specimens for ….. research."

"And what kind of research?" I felt he knew the answer but wanted to hear Birkin say it. William licked his lips, which was the closest thing he had shown to emotion during the whole discussion.

"Bacteria….. a pathogen we don't have back on Earth….." William inwardly cringed, then decided to go for the kill. "You see we're developing bio weapons, though we're not really allowed to admit it to anyone outside the company… Even inside the company if we're addressing the wrong people." The two men turned to each other, exchanging serious glances with one another.

"Then we might be able to help you, my boy."

Williams eyebrow flicked up.

By this time, Rabbitson and I stood side-by-side watching this all as if we weren't even there in the room with them.

The willowy old man raised his staff up somewhat, and from its prominent pearl crowning the serpentine cane proudly, sparked a beam of wispy white fire, lighting the four candles of a shallow yet prominent basin in the focus of the chamber. We all moved to this basing filled with a shallow shimmering dip of pure and spotless water which formed an image, and image of destruction and of fire, of men slaying innocent screaming civilians with a mere swipe of their clawed five digits.

"These are vampires." The old man explained ever so bluntly. "In an age not so long from now, they will be lead by a tyrant proclaiming himself as the solitary lord of our fair lands of Nosgoth."

"What's this got to do with anything?" Rabbitson whispered in my ear. I nudged him and continued.

"Our roles as pillar guardians ensure that we protect this land from such vermin and yet I fear I might have failed…"

"Wow, wow, wow, rewind." Butt in Rabbitson. "Can't you please explain this from the beginning? We're new here and everything…"

The old man sighed impatiently and started again, the image in the pool transforming from a scene of violence and carnage to a scene of harmony and of peace dominated by what looked like eight or nine white pillars towering into a cloudless the sky.

"These are the Pillars of Nosgoth. Long ago they were born by our ancestors to protect and preserve our land from impurities. The Pillars represent The Mind, Conflict, States, Dimension, Energy, Nature, Death and Time and are presided over by the Pillar of Balance"-

-"How do they do that?" Asked Rabbitson, butting in again unintentionally ignorantly. The old man sighed heavily.

"Their powers are mystical, my child. If we knew how they worked then we would know how to directly control the very powers of God himself."

"Okay then. That clears that up."

"Shut up and listen Rabbitson." I muttered bitterly through my teeth. He was unintentionally rubbishing someone else's beliefs in the least tactless way: without realising it.

The old man continued. "The three you see here are all Pillar guardians. Myself – the guardian of Time: Moebius. The 'floating armour' as you called him: Malek – guardian of Conflict, and my silent associate, Mortanius: guardian of Death."

"That must be a cheerful job."-

-"Shut up, Rabbitson!"

"As I was saying," Moebius continued. "A recent threat has come unto great attention of the circle of nine, the protectors of hope. A great evil has been conceived in our land that threatens to consume us all. The vampire plague smothers our land like a great suffocating cloud of locust, annihilating the fair green land they touch with their poisonous bloodlust." And that's when Moebius made his sales pitch. "It you good men of science can agree to discover a cure for us, then we shall provide you with all the specimens you required." The tone at the end of that sentence was devious and slightly naughty. He wasn't hiding the fact that what he wanted us to do for him in return was wrong, but he considered it the lesser of two evils. Despite the talk about vampire, William somehow maintained a cool, clam look on the situation and considered his answer carefully.

With one hand rubbing at his jaw, William replied. "It might take us some number of years. First what we have to do is discover a way to change humans into vampires and from there work on a way of blocking the process, but if we're successful then we'd both get what we want: You a way of preventing the speared of the vampire plague and us a way of changing a human body into the ultimate bio weapon."

-"You mean you actually buy this 'vampire' crap?"

"Shut the fuck UP Rabbitson!" I was really starting to get sick of him butting in. "If you have an opinion, then express it. Don't trash other people's legitimate negotiations with your remarks."

Rabbitson took a deep (and melodramatic, but that's what I've come to expect from Bunny) sigh, cupping his hands together.

"Just in case you haven't noticed Johnny-boy, vampires don't exist. They were made up by some jerk to send the shits up impressionable idiots, which back in the ye oldie times was absolutely everyone. So what if there have been vampire legends for thousands of years? That doesn't make them real. I mean, thousands of people were killed back on Earth because they were absolutely convinced they were witches but we now know that that was all bullshit. The vamps are probably just people born with a genetic mutation of sharpened canines or something…"

Mortanius and Moebius regarded each other with a tangled mix of frustration, worried anxiety, and a look of what I could only really describe as the visual representation of the words 'what an asshole'. What if they weren't being ignoramuses? What if there really was such a thing as vampires? It would explain a lot, that's for sure.

"What if vampires are real, Rabbitson?" I spoke up, all eyes fixing on me and filling me with an icy dread weighing down in my stomach. "I mean… this world seemingly has humans and a culture much like some of our ancient civilisations…. And we have vampire legends…. Our worlds could have connected before at some point…."

"I imagine it could be possible…" Moebius spoke up. "But if that is so, then which species originates from which world?"

-"Humans defiantly came from our world." William said without any hesitation. "We have evidence of their evolution. Vampires must have originated from this world and humans got in some how."

"Yeah - but humans couldn't possibly have made a portal back in ancient times" I said. "I mean, we've literally only just experience successful portal travel… What if vampires made a portal?"

-"That certainly seems possible." Spoke up Mortanius, saying the first words since he entered the room. "For example, this machine uses vampiric portal technology to sift through the stream of time… It might be possible to modify it to sift through worlds… Perhaps they brought humans to Nosgoth eons ago?"-

-Moebius nudged Mortanius hard. His frown was genuine and harsh. Apparently, Mortanius had said something Moebius didn't agree with.

After hearing Mortanius mention this room was some kind of time machine, the eyes of all three scientists wander around the room. The portal we had travelled from had infact taken up a whole chamber and we had emerged from a doorway leading into it. The chamber the portal was in was clearly the time streaming chamber Mortanius had mentioned. It was very much different in its design to the gothic stone room in which the basin and wooden double doors contained; black marble, beams a dirty golden in colour and all designed to appear like the components in an old clock. Upon the main support beams were the same insignia Moebius bore upon his forehead, the 'mobius'. For a few seconds, my hear skipped a beat when I saw the fantastic globe-like device on the ceiling of the chamber directly above a translucent, pearly in colour glass flooring that revealed the complex instruments inches beneath it and in the centre was another strange pearl-like object, much like the one of Moebiuses staff, on a support famed with two handlebars. It all looked like it should work, but then I remembered that I shouldn't get my hopes up, that these could just be the fantasies of two crazy old men and that everything we had been saying was a load of utter bullshit, but it was then that I turned to the curious floating armour Malek, quietly waiting in the sidelines feeling somewhat inadequate as the men in the room discussed the origins of the human and the vampire races. Apparently, the Conflict Guardian hadn't been blessed with a scientific mind, amongst other things, and shrank down when Mortanius and Moebius took the wheel, but I had noticed that Moebius was the one at the top of the tree in this relationship. Mortanius seemed to shrink down in his prescience in much the same way Malek did, but the comment he made earlier was much more intelligent than anything the Conflict Guardian had come out with…. So why was he acting so downtrodden? I sucked my lips feeling a flutter of suspicious doubt race through me. Moebius seemed pretty cool for someone just having met a race from another world. He hadn't even regarded the broken probe crumpled on the floor and any ambiguity in his expressions, as if he knew what it was and why it was there. He was too professional considering the culture shock such a primitive race should have been experiencing.

"Moebius – I don't understand." I interrupted the heated silence, Moebius glaring scornfully at Mortanius who had remained unwavering, Malek sinking into the background like an unattended shadow melting into the background and Rabbitson and Birkin, two entirely separate entities in both mind and manner, pondering with confused expression of their soft faces. They all turned to me in unison at the odd and out of place remark. Aside from Mortaniuses comment that had clearly disturbed the pace of the discussions, my remark was quite unusual, to them at least.

"What don't you understand, Howe?" He asked patiently, understandingly and at a dawdling pace that threatened to drag down my racy, panicked mood to a slow crawl.

"I don't know… everything I guess…." I struggled to find the words to express my anxieties about the convenience of the situation but something was holding me back. My very breath itself would catch in the back of my throat before I could force it out to say what I felt. To be honest, I wasn't sure what it was I was feeling. It was clearly derived from worry and concern, the stir in the pit of my stomach threatening to build up as a lump in my throat suffocate me was a clear and unmistakable emotion when you deal with some of the thing I have to deal with. But this time, there was something more to it; something purer, something primal, not the outbreak of a million different feelings mixing to one like colours merging in a pallet to form a dark and unsettling colour. This was something strong and unadulterated that simply doesn't occur within me. I'm a complex man who needlessly makes matters more complex for himself; I wasn't used to such pure emotion.

I continued my pitch, expressing my fears.

"Why is everyone so quick to help everyone reach their gaols when we know so little about each other? No one has offered to exchange technology; no one's even asked to look around each other's worlds a bit more before deciding whether they can be trusted. I thought there'd be a lot more talk and discovery when first contact would be achieved with another world."

Mortanius turned angrily to Moebius, the scowl on his mildly wrinkled forehead sending a flicker of hope through me. He defiantly seemed to be agreeing with me strongly, but Moebius barely acknowledged his glances infused with fiery emotion, and calmly and coolly replying;

"We have a terrible plague of vampires upon our land and you and your friends can potentially create a cure. Our two goals, though admittedly different, reap benefits for us all." I didn't like the way Moebius peered at me, overly concerned and understandingly through those milky eyes. There was something ominously artificial about his manner that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I didn't know him nearly well enough to build on a good enough psychological profile on him to guess what was the matter. I guess I'd just have to ride this one out until I knew them all a bit better, as annoying as it was for me to let this drop.

Mortanius spoke up, glaring at Moebius but the hooded old man barely blink at the obvious hostility in his tone;

"There is no cure for vampirism, only death. You yourself taught me that, Moebius, a long time ago."

Moebius smiled warmly as he replied, but the warmth did not touch his pallid eyes. Along with the deliberately slow pace of his reply, it all added to his artificial manner.

"Perhaps, with their science, they can develop a cure."

-"I care not for cures!" Spoke up Malek, finally contributing to the convocation, reacting angrily to Moebius.

"While these men potter away in their laboratories in search of an answer that may never come, the vampires will ravage all of Nosgoth!"

"Silence Malek." Moebius commanded, a brooding tone sneaking into his voice unveiling his increasingly sparse patience. "I will not have you jeopardising this situation with your hot temper."-

-At last the rest of the scientist began to spill into the room, accompanied by armed forces and equipment packs. We all took this as an opportunity to change the subject. We'd all cajoled ourselves into an awkward corner to fight ourselves out of and were more than relieved to deal with the others. Moebius and Mortanius took an active role in helping us out and kindly allowed us to set up equipment in the building in which we had arrived. They called it 'The Sarafan Stronghold' and acted like a military base of operations for the circle and their armour clad holy warriors known as the Sarafan who sought to purge Nosgoth's vampires once and for all. It sounded worryingly too much like ethnic cleansing to me, but I was assured many times that the vampires were a black hearted breed of monsters who brought only pain, despair and death to all that they touched. .….So much so that it was starting to worry mean even more.

Our base was wet up in a courtyard-like arena of finely sculpted stone. It had no roof to it, but a large tent like nylon fabric draped over the top of the stone pillars that lined it soon sorted that out. It seemed a little pointless as we had a second base set up in the chamber just beyond the Chronoplast which contained the dimensional portal, the one that contained the circular basin willed with water that Moebius instructed me was also used as the circles meeting room. That particular base was acting more like a communications base, a computer system installed, along with an intercom transmitter, which enabled people in any location on Nosgoth (with a radio, of course) to communicate with the laboratory back in Raccoon City and with each other. The computer was also fitted with a kind of transmitter that directly linked up with the laboratories computer back in the dimension gate room on Earth. That way, files and information could be uploaded and downloaded between worlds as easily as it could be done back on Earth. We thought the idea of keeping cables trailing through the portals a bit dangerous. If there was an emergency shut down, I wouldn't like to know what would happen. Of course the operation didn't take five minuets, but it didn't take more than a few days.

It was all too swift for my taste. For the most part of the week or so, I spent it pottering around the Sarafan Stronghold. Apparently, the Sarafan that guarded its corridors were under orders not to attack people they see in white coats, besides even if we weren't wearing the coats we'd stick out like sore thumbs.

I wandered the spacious hallways of the Stronghold, at first beholding the marvel that was the architecture. The patterns were defiantly a more traditional form of gothic architecture, and much different from the time streaming chambers gold and black arcane markings. It left me confused. The architecture looked almost identical to stuff found in Earth history - some time during this millennia at the most - which would suggest that humans had come to Nosgoth less than a few hundred years ago, but Moebius and all the other humans in Nosgoth made out as if the human race had been there as long as any human legend could ever remember, thousands and thousands of years…… It didn't make any sense…..

I mused over this along with what Moebius had said involving a cure for the vampire race of Nosgoth. Was he really interested in an actual cure, or a deadly virus that would wipe out all vampires and leave humans untouched? What was the deal with Mortanius? Moebius barely let him get a word in edgeways, but he clearly knew more than he had told us. I recall he said that the time streaming chamber was vampire in origin… . . If vampires were made from humans just like the legends on Earth, and human architecture was so different from vampire architecture, then I made a guess that vampires were native to Nosgoth, and was around long before humans turned up if their culture was once apparently so different from theirs. If that was true than that must have meant at some point vampires were a race that could function completely independently from humans. If that was true, then what changed and why? It seemed too sudden to be evolution. Was that the cure Moebius meant; A way to change the practice of turning humans into vampires and food back to how it was before humans turned up? If I know humans, then changing them into the superior race of vampires would be a great way of corrupting their hearts with power, as was a trait found in all humans. Maybe a cure would be something to deal with their negative aspects like blood lust?

I couldn't be the only man to have come across these thoughts. If these thoughts had crossed the minds of any of the researchers at all, then William Birkin at least would have pondered these thoughts too . . .

'Maybe he doesn't care.' I thought to myself in reply. 'This isn't our world. Sure, there's a lot of opportunity for exportation and discovery, but this world is on a more primitive tech level than ours, meaning there can only be so much we can learn from them. We might not even be here that long once we get hold of a few specimens to experiment on: There's no guarantee William will stick around to hold up his end of the bargain and deal with the Vampires.' Maybe all the other researchers didn't care if there was something strange going on in the subplots of this world; it's not in their job description to unlock the mysteries of Nosgoth. 'And it isn't in yours either. For once in your life John Howe, why not try to do your job and keep your nose out of the affairs of others.' My thirst for answers often proved to be insatiable but I tried to force these things from my mind as I headed back to base B (the courtyard base). The strange look I received from the slits on the Sarafans' helmets that held their eyes as I strode past them unnerved me deeply. I despised it when others knew something I didn't, and the icy gazes of the cold steel clad holy warriors spoke their mistrust and knowledge that I didn't yet posses. I figured they didn't like us because of our very nature: We were scientists whose main purpose in life was to know everything we could. They must justifiably believe we were approaching this situation with an ironic ignorance induced by knowledge; the kind of ignorance that was all too common in men of science, like when an educated man regards ones religious beliefs with arrogant dismissal and ridicule, refusing to except the beliefs of others because it doesn't conform to their scientific lore. Situations like that always ended in devastation on the so-called leaned men because of their refusal to recognise the power of faith and belief.

It reminded me of a story I'd heard from . . . somewhere . . . – I don't remember . .. I think it was called 'Dead men's path.' It was about a school in some poor country no doubt, where a new head teacher was selected to run the school. He had a lot of plans for it, for an inspection was due fairly soon, and one of the things he did was to plant lots of pretty flowers and bushes around the perimeter of school. It was a lot of hard work, but I really increased the overall appeal of the school. But one day, the headmaster saw an old, withered woman totter quietly across the very middle of the schoolyard, from one side to the other and out through the bushes again. This left him insanely furious, but on closer inspection of the school yard, he noticed that a worn path had been etched crudely into the dirt exactly where the old woman had trodden. Feeling infuriated, the head teacher asked about the path with one of the older teaching staff and why nothing had been done to stop this, to which he replied that something was done once long ago, but there was unpleasantness and now they just let them be to walk the path as they please; they didn't disrupt anyone or anything. . . The head teacher argued that this was beside the point and that they had no right to trespass upon their property, and ordered that a formidable fence be put up around the perimeter of the school, barring further violation of his schoolyard. A day after the fence was erected, a shaman visited the head teacher and politely explained that the path acted not only as the pathway through which the dead left this world, but more importantly, acted as the path upon which new life entered. The head teacher ridiculed the shaman, saying that dead men do not need paths and that it was his job as a man representing education and enlightenment to teach their children to mock such ridiculous and foolish notions and that his people were trespassing on his land. The shaman replied that though the head teacher may be right, the shaman's people were still entitled to their own views, and that his forefathers had been walking that path long before the school was erected and that by all rights it was the school that was trespassing. The head teacher refused to compromise with his 'insane religious beliefs' and refused to make an opening in the fence to let them pass.

It could have just been unfortunate coincidence, but later on that night, a woman in labour gave birth to a stillborn child and lost her own life in the process, and believing it to be a result of blocking the path that the unborn child would have taken to enter this world, they destroyed the fence, and most of the flower gardens the head teacher had put so much work into constructing. The next day, the inspection commenced and the school received a very poor rating as a result of a tribal feud between the school and the resident villagers.

I thought over this story a lot as I walked the corridors of the Sarafan stronghold back to camp B. I saw the looks some of the other scientists had given Moebius and Mortanius when they clued them in on the situation about the vampires and their nature as pillar guardians. It reminded me of the story. The other scientists could ridicule their beliefs into the ground because of their 'lack of ignorance' on the subject, but the power of belief could destroy everything we work for if we don't respect it. Our work could be destroyed in a heartbeat because we failed to respect the beliefs of others and so I tried to keep very respectful of the things Mortanius and Moebius told me of their roles.

I entered camp B to find a busy scene. Men dressed in back wearing headsets and shades were still setting up severance equipment, rows and rows of monitors situated in a great wall and seemingly needlessly complex control panels poised in front of swivel chairs to control them. What drew my attention was a large desk set up in one corner of the courtyard with a large and rather old looking map drooped across its surface much like a tablecloth. Around it crowded four scientists I recognised from Team B (we had a secure base here, so mission control sent in both teams, each with different objectives), with their forms positioned closely together, draped over the map in inspection. Clearly the reason they were so closely squeezed together was because Mortanius was behind them, trying to tell them something, something important, but they obviously were pretending they hadn't seen him, or were trying to shun him to get him to go away. I approached the scene, swallowing a nervous lump in my throat.

"Mortanius." I said to get his attention and to show him that I at least was interested in what he had to say. Mortanius looked up at me seemingly in bewilderment at my willingness to talk to him, but eventually discarded the other scientists and approached me.

"You are Doctor Howe?" He asked in his rough voice. I smiled in response, attempting to appear placid and friendly, like I'm on his side. Surprisingly he smiled back. It looked odd on him. "You do not appear to take such a hostile view of my beliefs as the others like you."

"I recognise that the power of beliefs can be an influential force, not to be ridiculed but respected." I replied.

"Indeed." Mortanius replied enigmatically. "Many a great and noble race had been destroyed for disrespecting faith, but my role as Necromancer and Guardian of the Pillar of death are far more significant to this world than 'simple pagan belief', as the others call it." I sucked on my lips. I wanted to believe him, but it was hard. . . Apparently, my concern showed on my face, for he responded: " I can understand how you would find it difficult to believe. It would appear that in your land, magic was a force that died long ago, and in its place the laws of science took precedence, making any magic left in your world utterly undetectable to both your senses and your scientific devices. But I am sure a man of science such as yourself is aware that just because you cannot detect something does not mean it does not exist."

He brought up a damn good point, but I felt my heart trapped in my throat, half torn between belief and reason.

I reluctantly shook my head. "Uh. . . I'm sorry but I'm gonna really need some proof. . . ."

Mortanius nodded. "I would expect no less from a learned man of science. Come, follow me." I abided, following his slow pace through the Sarafan stronghold. The Sarafan I passed on my walk only few minuets ago had glared at me in mistrust, now they regarded me with first astonishment, then anger, then curiosity as they internally questioned my reasons for accompanying the necromancer, who was apparently leading me out of the building. One of the warriors even dared to approach.

"Mortanius, sir." He began. "Lord Moebius insists that those researchers do not leave the building without his expressed permission." I gave Mortanius an edgy glance, but he defended his right to show me what he wanted with the reply:

"Moebius and I are both Guardians, men fighting on the same side to rid this world of the vampire plague. Moebius may not be comfortable with letting these scientists roam our land but I am confident that this one at least is enlightened enough to heed our noble cause." I could detect some minute melodrama in his voice. This bewildered me, but I tried not to let it show on my face, though I'd sure as hell ask about it later. "It would aid us greatly in these matters to have at least one with our interests at heart."

Surprisingly, the Sarafan saw reason and let us pass, opening the gateway via a leaver hidden in a niche behind a brick in the wall, but I worried still that he'd be telling Moebius about this and I'd be getting Mortanius into trouble.

"Are you sure about this? I don't want you getting into trouble over me." I murmured, leaning in a little close to him to make sure the Sarafan didn't catch my words as we passed him.

"You already know the reason for my trust in you, Doctor Howe." He whispered in a low voice back to me. "During our first meeting, you expressed you belief that your colleagues were much too hasty to fulfil their work before knowing what they were up against, and I feel as if I am in the same predicament as you are."

As we had long passed the Sarafan, I continued at a more comfortable volume.

I tried to sound apologetic. "I'm not sure I get you."

"I believe we are all hurrying into this state of affairs far too quickly than I find comfortable. The clash between two completely different cultures cannot be ignored until it simply ceases to be, but that is nonetheless what is coming to pass. I feel I need to find someone from your world whom I am confident I can trust and confide in to understand what you and your peers hope to achieve in this world. It seems you are in need of similar services, in that you need to know this world before you can become comfortable in it?"

"You got that right. . ." I replied. " I mean, I saw Rabbitson a few minuets before I went out for a walk and the guy was utterly loving every second of this shit." I scowled angrily at Mortanius, continuing in my rant. "Ya-know it turns out that the second they finish setting up all the gear, they're gonna send us out in on an expedition, camping equipment and all! Rabbitson cant wait, but I fucking can. I hate camping."

"That may not be such a sensible arrangement." Warned Mortanius, his tone laced with uncertainty. "There are things far worse than Vampires stalking the untamed lands of this world."

"Like?"

Mortanius sighed wearily at my seemingly ignorant response, but decided to enlighten me anyway. "Other than the obvious threat of human brigands in the wilderness and to a lesser extent, the aforementioned vampires, the darker places of this world are inhabited by wraiths, shades, unimaginably powerful demons of a wide variety of skills, abilities and sizes and if Moebius has first hand in your affairs, hideous mutants that will be brought about by the diseased binding many years from now."

"Binding? What's that?"

Mortanius nodded. "Surely there is a point in the time stream of your world that acts as a divider between two main points in human history?"

"Sort of I guess." I responded. "The birth of Jesus is sort of accepted as that point. Everything before him counts backwards in years hence BC and the opposite is AD, which I think means something along the lines of 'Ano Domini' or something. . . "

"'In the year of our lord'" Mortanius translated. "The birth of your Messiah is the point from which your history is mapped?"

"He's not everyone's Messiah. That's why now our employers make us call it CE, which means 'common era'. Something to do with PC, which in this context means 'political correctness' but it can also mean 'personal computer'."

"So many abbreviations for such simple phrases would suggest the people of your world is very lazy" Mortanius dryly joked.

"Sometimes I honestly think that laziness is the driving force for us to develop new domestic technology rather than the hunger for progress." I joked back.

"Seriously though, on this world, the inevitable corruption of the Pillars acts as that same key period in history as the birth of the Messiah in your world."

"A possible Messiah." I corrected. "Not everyone believes he's the Son of God."

Mortanius good-naturedly challenged my statement. "Did his lifes teachings monumentally effect and liberate the religion he worshipped?"

"Sort of. He told Jews how to worship their own religion and ended up creating more or less a new one instead."

"'Son of God' or not, he fulfilled the criteria for messiah for those people."

"People who believe in him make out like there's only one position for messiah in all the world, though."

"That is not so on this world." Mortanius replied craftily. "There are two prophesied messiahs of Nosgoth, each for each race."

"What-vampires and humans?"

"No, Vampires and Hylden, Hylden being the adversary race that the Pillars are constructed to keep from this world."

"Oh, so that's what those Pillars are for? And what's this got to do with the binding, I thought you were telling me that?"

Mortanius gave me an odd look for my impatience and continued, faltering in his reply only briefly, then apprehensively continued. "The binding is brought about by the Pillars to keep the Hylden sealed away. It is a closely guarded secret. Of all humans, only myself and Moebius know of this."

"Why's it such a big secret?" I asked, bewildered as we headed into a room, which was dominated by a large balcony.

"We are hunting the vampires to oblivion, do you not remember?" Mortanius said. "And when they are all gone, the very thing that safeguards the Pillars existence will be destroyed."

"So the Pillars will be destroyed and the Hylden will flood into this world?"

Mortanius nodded critically. "They will be full of a most terrible wrath from their imprisonment within a horrid dimension for thousands of years. I do not believe life on this world could survive such endless hell brought about by their wrath, so I hope to prevent this scenario from occurring. The corruption of the Pillars will be a result of my trump card."

"But Moebius is the Time Guardian. Does he know this'll happen?" I asked anxiously, my face creased to a frown.

"If he does, then he must believe he can deal with the Hylden or believes he can use what I plan to do to protect the binding to his own advantage."

"But wiping out the last vampires only to get an even greater plague on Nosgoth . . Why not just let them live and avert an even bigger disaster?"

Mortanius looked down out of emotional distraction. "That is the part I do not understand. I have often wondered if his hatred for the last remaining vampires and his willingness to unleash hell in order to be rid of them is personal but Moebius is a wise and cunning man. He must have realised it would be better to tolerate the few remaining vampires regardless of his emotional standpoint. This conundrum has lead me to believe that there is a darker force at work in all this. . . I have speculated that Moebius is under Hylden influence, yet I have direct contact with them and have not received any indication of any other disciples other than my own. . ."

Any hesitation I felt that Mortanius's views were boring pagan belief had entirely left my system. We'd walked in on a world full of some freaky problems.

Mortanius lead me out onto the balcony. The refreshing, cool breeze sweeping across the balcony was unnervingly clean. . . I've been living in cities all my life. I've never smelt air so fresh and unpolluted in all my life. I was looking out over a beautiful blue shimmering lake, which caught the rays of the gentle alien sun causing it to sparkle and shimmer like a flowing ghostly gown. The lake was bordered by mountains over which peaked tantalising trees of a forest in the skyline just beyond my view but what caught my attention the most was what was in the sky. Nine white pillars, nine white pristine magnificent pillars reaching up into the heavens and beyond all view. My mouth dropped. Something like this is impossible to construct even with our technology. . .

"How do they stay up without falling?"

"We do not ask such questions." Replied Mortanius, regarding the Pillars but with a more calm and docile respect than my amazement. "For all our guardianship, we know not how they function. If we did then we would not work so hard to safeguard them, as we could constantly create more."

A few moments passed as I continued glaring in bewildered admiration, my mind empty of all thought and instead replaced with by a sense of marvel.

"You must be able to see them for miles around.. . ."

Mortanius smiled proudly as he folded his arms, as if he had created them himself and was pleased to see someone else appreciating their magnificence.

"Indeed. From every point in Nosgoth they are visible, their pristine totems reaching far into the limitless heavens. Most common humans have lived with their image for so long that they take their countenance for granted. The fools do not know they will not be as they are forever."

"I don't think I've seen anything quite like it. . . "

Mortanius seemed to be glowing with warm satisfaction. "I did not believe that would be so."